‘If only he’d reached out before he was so ill and told us his intentions. I would have come to see him – and my parents too – and tried to understand him better and ease his mind.’
Helen patted Ruan’s arm. ‘Accept your good fortune and that it came from a good place in the end.’
‘Yes … Can I ask if he mentioned anyone specifically by name that he’d wronged?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. You could talk to Kyra. She’s around somewhere.’
‘Would she mind?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. I’ll ask her.’
Helen came back with a slender young woman in a tabard. She was only in her early twenties and seemed a little in awe of Ruan when Helen left them to talk in the office. She was probably desperate to get back to her work.
‘Helen says you wanted to talk to me about Walter?’ she said in a warm northern accent.
‘Yes, if you don’t mind. I’m a distant relative and I wastrying to find out a bit more about his final days. If he mentioned any of the family – or his friends.’
‘Hmm. Yes, lots of names, but he wasn’t lucid very often. He talked about lots of people. He could get very agitated and upset and we had to try and soothe him. I asked him who these people were a few times to try and encourage him to talk more, but he found it hard to explain.’ She shrugged wearily. ‘It was very difficult for him to communicate. All he did was stare out of the window at the garden. We had to move his chair and then his bed so he could see the flowers. That was the only thing that soothed him.’
‘That’s such a shame,’ Ruan said, thinking of the tangled mass of blooms and thorns that he’d been about to clear.
‘Was there anyone in particular he mentioned?’ Ruan tried again. ‘Fiona and Robert Mitchell, my father and mother?’
She frowned. ‘Sorry. They don’t ring a bell.’
‘What about Neil?’ he asked. ‘Neil Pendower.’
Her eyes lit with recognition. ‘Oh yes, he mentioned a Neil and that surname. I’m from Hull and I always thought it was such a funny name – not down here of course – very Cornish. Hmm, I remember that. Pendower. He used to get very upset when he mentioned Neil. Poor old Walter.’
‘Yes. It’s all so sad. Did he ever mention a Tammy? Or Tamara?’
She frowned. ‘I don’t think so. Only Neil from what I recall. He mentioned his own parents a couple of times. Mother and Father, he called them, all very formal. I don’t think his childhood was happy because he’d become distressed, angry – sometimes he’d cry. It was upsetting to see.’
Kyra’s phone buzzed in the pocket of her tabard. Instinctively, her hand went to her pocket and she mouthed ‘Sorry’, glanced at the screen, but ended the call anyway.
Ruan felt deeply grateful to her. ‘I won’t keep you any longer. Thanks so much for helping me.’
Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Have I?’
‘Oh yes, you and Helen. And please pass on my thanks to all the staff for taking care of Great-uncle Walter.’
‘You’re very welcome,’ Kyra said, almost bubbly now that she could answer her phone and get on with her job.
She showed Ruan out of the office to reception where Helen was saying goodbye to some relatives.
‘Was Kyra able to help?’ Helen asked when Kyra and the visitors had left.
‘Definitely.’
‘Good. Is there anything else we can do for you?’
Conscious that he’d taken up too much of their day already, Ruan reluctantly said, ‘No thanks, but thank you for your time, and to your whole team for everything.’
He walked back across the forecourt towards the car park, catching the scent of the roses in the air and wondering if Walter had noticed it, even at the end. Did they leave his window open or wheel him out here so he could enjoy the flowers? He should have asked while he had a chance.
‘Mr Mitchell!’ Helen was carrying a cardboard box and Ruan met her halfway across the car park. ‘I’m sorry but I’d forgotten about this. Kyra reminded me. Your uncle didn’t have many personal possessions, but we decided to keep and store these for a while after he died, just in case any ofhis relatives did get in touch. I don’t know if any of them will be of any help to you, but you never know.’
‘They might be,’ Ruan said, taking the box. ‘Thank you again.’
